Coronavirus and Sin: How are they Similar?

These days there is endless talk about the Coronavirus. Many sources seem to want to use it as a weapon to incite fear. Open most any source and you can hear how it is affecting us and the potential risk of infection. It is inescapable. If you haven’t contracted it, you are endlessly hearing about COVID surges. If you aren’t hearing about it from all the typical sources, you are faced with the repercussions of this virus on our businesses, lives, and culture. And if you happen to have escaped those other two factors, there still is the likelihood that you could contract it. It seems to be completely absorbing our time, energy, and focus.

Similarity of Sin and Coronavirus

Today I want to show how sin and the coronavirus are extremely similar in nature. No, this is not a God’s wrath and judgment post, it is an overcomers post. Strange comparison I know but this is what I have seen. Both sin and coronavirus are not something you can avoid, it is something you have to overcome. You don’t outrun a virus nor do you out maneuver sin. Ask a doctor, viruses are not typically avoided in society, they are overcome with our immunity. In the same manner sin is not avoided, it is overcome by our Savior. You are not going to avoid yourself into holiness, just as you’re not going to social distance yourself into health. Long story short, we have to become overcomers. And this happens through engaging, not avoiding.

Now, I am not making a political statement here, advocating mask defiance and anti-social distancing measures. That is a personal choice and leading. With or without a mask the likelihood of us getting the coronavirus is high. Those of us who have a strong immune system will fair better than those who don’t. But how you beat a virus is by engaging it with your immunity and developing a living resistance. That is how our human body works.

I also don’t say this with a lack of compassion. I know people would have gotten this virus, and being sick with coronavirus is just miserable. We just got a text the other day that the family of good friend of the ministry were just diagnosed with covid-19 and they have been super sick.  Fever, can’t sleep, aches and pains, throwing up…all the virus like responses. Like any virus, it hits our bodies hard.

Sin and Covid-19

So how is my response to sin similar to my response to coronavirus? Well, in the same way I don’t ignore, hide, or tiptoe around sin, because that is a sure way to have it take me down. I engage His Life to defeat my sin nature.  My sin nature is something I take head on and allow HIM who is my Immunity to overcome it in my life. Sin and the virus are ALWAYS present, neither are going away. But I gain victory over both of them through an active defeat of their power.

They say that Covid-19 cases are surging. The numbers are reported to be spiking and states and businesses are clamping down to brace for another impact. While the deaths don’t seem to be rising, the temptation of many is to run and hide. Lock your doors, avoid contact, and escape the reality. But this isn’t how the human body works. Avoidance is not the answer, seeking to bolster our individual immunity and allowing the country to develop a herd immunity is how we defeat a virus.

No, I am not going to go lick door knobs, refuse to wash my hands, and go visit assisted living homes to cough all about. But like sin, avoidance is not the answer. We can’t just wait either of them out, our sin nature is a reality just as are viruses. This is our life in a fallen world. We were born with a sin nature in a world with viruses. And only Christ’s Life is my immunity to the sin nature, and in the immune system He gave me is the development of my resistance to any virus.